📥 Your Weekly Career Digest - #1

Starting this week, I'm trialing an edition of the newsletter that focuses on Tech Career news, so you can stay atop of more trends and have a view of what's going around in the world.

Also, if you start seeing weird html markdown (hashtags, squared brackets - please bear with me; I am planning to make The Chase more interactive and useful further down the line, by publishing in a ['Second Brain'] format through a tool like Obsidian)

As always, please consider subscribing and sharing to support me if you find this content useful ❤️️

🗳 Coinbase Launches App for Employees to rate each other - genuis or crazy?

#Coinbase is reportedly testing out having employees rate each other in an app with a thumbs up or thumbs down after meetings and other interactions.

Following the concept of [[radical transparency]](the idea that giving more information about performance and operations will encourage better discussions and debate), and also #RayDalio's similar implementation at Bridgewater (called 'DotCollector'), Coinbase employees can grade each other through the app with either a thumbs up, thumbs down, or a neutral rating on the basis of ten core values defined by Coinbase, including "clear communication" and "positive energy." Employees can only see their own ratings.

Feedback loops and feedback culture are vital to increase efficiency and improve employee relations in a company. Most of the times people are not fostered to do this and may leave it to [[Performance Reviews]] cycles, but given they are once or twice a year, these are hardly actionable. That said, a 'quick rating' app like this one, can be extremely dangerous because it can call for impulsive and superficial ratings, because it doesn't ask for a deeper reflection and takes for granted that people are capable of expressing themselves correctly and be self-conscious.

In fact, at Ray Dalio's firm, Employees “rate” their colleagues on 75 different attributes 15 times a week to generate “baseball cards” that show “how much their views can be trusted.” All meetings are recorded, archived, and made available for others to view later so they can point out what their colleagues did wrong. Perhaps not coincidentally, people often cry in the bathrooms. Twenty percent of new hires leave within the first year.

🙉 Gen-Z are not 'going back to the office' - they are discovering it.

#GenZ and #GenY today make up 46% of the workforce. This generation of workers graduated during the pandemic, onboarded virtually and probably work with colleagues they've never met in person.

When we talk about work, we always tend to make the mistake to think and talk about it only from our personal perspective and experience, but we need to realize that there are a) individual differences etc b) cultural differences c) generational differences.

Also, each generation is impacted by technology differently.

Those in the Baby Boomer and Gen X generations have straddled two very different technological worlds–pre-internet and post. Meanwhile, Gen Z grew up immersed in technologies like smartphones and social media. They are self-reliant, independent, and accustomed to presenting themselves publicly in a digital environment.

Managers play a key role in helping Gen Z workers segue into the physical office environment. They need to provide more than task-oriented communications. Managers today need to be mentors and coaches, finding time to catch up and really talk about how the employee is adapting.

Each generation has something valuable to contribute. This is the message today’s managers must emphasize.

Reverse mentoring (also called co-mentoring) makes use of this generational knowledge. While more experienced employees have a lot of knowledge to share, younger generations also have something to teach, such as how to do things more efficiently. Gen Z employees are more likely to challenge the current technology if they feel it lacks the degree of flexibility, transparency, ownership, direct communication, and authentic self-expression to which they are accustomed–and that’s okay. Innovation is born out of respectful friction.

🏃 Top Companies Employees Never Want to Leave

Resume.io just conducted a research to understand turnover rates in tech.

Can you spot the differences in industries? Seems like a clear cut between tech (and turnovers are low as 0.8 years - incredible) and more old-economy.

Here's the Top 20 Companies with worst turnover rates:

And here's the Top 20 with lowest turnover rates:

📚 Other News

How faulty [[onboarding]] can send employees stepping toward the door 

Some employees are just saying “no” to mandatory Return To Office 

The State of Talent Optimization -

- Some highlights:

- Companies with the right people in place have 42% lower turnover

- Remote-friendly companies are experiencing 33% lower turnover

- 75% of executives say The Great Resignation impacted their financial stability

- 1 in 5 workers quit in the last 6 months